In all the crumbled ruins of our past,
Where flowers cannot grow beneath the stones —
The last remaining rooms of what was vast,
Our altars with their tiny, shapely bones —
Your laughter echoes from the very walls,
A ghost among the misty corridors;
It draws me back — it stifles and enthralls,
Rebuking me as sure as it implores.
I linger at the threshold, bound and still,
And taste only the edges of your blame.
Though I could step inside, and dream I will,
I don’t dare open doors that bear your name —
And all I could have sung, or could have said…
The words are dust in me. The words are dead.